Binh Thuan faces tourism staff shortages

The south-central province of Binh Thuan, a major tourism hub with coastal resorts, faces a lack of trained staff for the tourism industry, particularly in management.

About 12,000 people are working for the province’s tourism industry, and the figure had been up by 10 per cent on average each year.
Despite the increase in number of trained staff in recent years, the quality of human resources had failed to meet demand from local tourism companies.
Vo Hoang Tuyet Linh, deputy director of the province’s Department of Culture, Sport and Tourism, said that the sector lacked good managers and the quality of the workforce was below standard.

Speaking at a tourism conference held in the province recently, she said that more than 44 per cent of tourism human resources lacked sufficient education and that less than 5 per cent had attended university or post-university courses. In addition, their foreign language skills were poor.

Bui Van Giao, founder of Phan Thiet University, said the number of students choosing tourism as a subject was low compared to the number of job openings in the industry.
The number of students studying tourism was only 70 per cent of the total enrolled at business administration faculties.

The province estimates that by 2015 the province will have 12,000 rooms, and that human resource staff will total 40,000 and will rise to 78,000 by 2010.
Participants at the conference said that more vocational training centres should be set up to improve the quality of human resources and that schools should cooperate with other countries to learn about tourism education.

The conference was organised by the Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism and Phan Thiet University.